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1 Discuss this article at Journaltalk: Econ Journal Watch Volume 7, Number 2 May 2010, pp Economic Enlightenment in Relation to College-going, Ideology, and Other Variables: A Zogby Survey of Americans Zeljka Buturovic 1 and Daniel B. Klein 2 ABSTRACT We present results of a December 2008 Zogby International nationwide survey of American adults, with 4,835 respondents. We gauge economic enlightenment based on responses to eight economic questions. A number of controversial interpretive issues attend our measure, including: (1) our designation of enlightened answers; (2) an asymmetry in sometimes challenging leftist mentalities without ever specifically challenging conservative and libertarian mentalities; (3) our simple 8-question test is merely a baseline and does not gauge the heights of economic enlightenment; and (4) a concern about response bias namely, that less intelligent people would be less likely to participate in the survey. Even with the caveats in mind, however, the results are important. They indicate that, for people inclined to take such a survey, basic economic enlightenment is not correlated with going to college. We also show economic enlightenment by ideological groups the conservatives and libertarians do significantly better than the liberals, progressives, and moderates and we show that the finding about education holds up when we look within each ideological group (with perhaps the 1. Research associate, Zogby International, Utica, NY Professor of Economics, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Acknowledgments: For valuable feedback, we are grateful to Niclas Berggren, Jason Briggeman, Bryan Caplan, Tyler Cowen, April Kelly-Woessner, Richard Redding, and Charlotta Stern. VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

2 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN exception of the conservative group). We discuss possible explanations for the finding that economic enlightenment is not correlated with going to college. We also report simple findings for the relation between economic enlightenment and each of the following variables: 2008 presidential vote, party affiliation, voting participation, race or ethnic group, urban vs. rural, religious affiliation, religious participation, union membership, marital status, membership in armed forces, NASCAR fandom, membership in the investor class, patronage at Wal-Mart, household income, and gender. We have opted to keep the reporting direct and simple we have not applied any weights to the data. We do not report any regression results. We make the data available online as a linked appendix and invite others to explore the data for findings beyond those reported here. Origination of the Survey and the Present Paper The survey was designed by the first author of this paper, Zeljka Buturovic, who holds a PhD in psychology from Columbia University and is currently a Research Associate at Zogby International. Buturovic s motivation in designing the survey grew out of her dissatisfaction with previous surveys treating economic understanding. She regarded many questions on previous surveys to be either too narrowly factual, too dry in a textbook way, and too removed from policy context, or, alternatively, too general in eliciting policy judgments apart from specific economic consequences. Either way, many questions on previous surveys were too antiseptic with respect to really knowing economics in relation to important issues. In designing the survey, she sought to formulate questions that would reflect enlightenment about economic facts or consequences, especially those in tension with established policy and popular political mentalities. To Buturovic, questions about unintended effects of a variety of economic policies, such as rent-control and mandatory licensing, seemed like a good start. Like all Zogby surveys, the questionnaire included standard demographic questions. The questionnaire instrument and all data are linked at the end of this paper. The survey was administered by Zogby International by usual procedure. It was a nationwide survey of American adults, randomly selected from the Zogby International online panel routinely used in political and commercial research. On December 5, 2008, Zogby sent by 63,986 invitations to the members of the panel. The invitation included a link that would take the respondents to the survey on Zogby s own secure servers. The link expired after one use, which is one of several security measures Zogby takes to prevent answer duplication. Because 175 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

3 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT the panel is large it is difficult to maintain currency of all the addresses in it. Zogby estimates that the number of invitations actually received to have been around 75%, or Of these, 6699 respondents started the survey and 4835 completed it by the close of the survey on December 8. This gives us a response rate of 14% and a completion rate of 10%. Several months after the survey had been conducted, Buturovic issued a working paper based on the survey (Buturovic et al 2009), and she was subsequently contacted by this paper s second author, Daniel Klein. They then pursued the present paper and together decided which set of questions would constitute what is treated here as an 8-question test of basic economic enlightenment. The Eight Questions We Use to Gauge Economic Enlightenment The questionnaire contained 21 questions on economics, 16 of which were in the following format: Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable. 1. Strongly Agree 2. Somewhat Agree 3. Somewhat Disagree 4. Strongly Disagree 5. Not sure Of the 16 questions in that uniform format, this paper deals with only eight. We have omitted 8 of the economic questions in that format because they are not as useful in gauging economic enlightenment, either because the question is too vague or too narrowly factual, or because the enlightened answer is too uncertain or arguable. For example, the statement economic development makes things more affordable hinges greatly on the interpretation of affordable maybe economic development makes normal living more expensive, but it also makes incomes higher. The statement the more people there are, the more wealth there is is uncertain in its context. The statements of the omitted questions are provided elsewhere Among the omitted questions are the following eight of the same format as those used here: 1. Poverty causes crime. 2. Business contracts benefit all parties. 3. Private property protections primarily benefit the well-off. 4. More often than not, employers who discriminate in employee hiring will be punished by the market. 5. In the USA, more often than not, rich people were born rich. 6. Consumption grows the economy. 7. Economic development makes things more affordable. 8. Foreign aid helps economic growth of recipient countries. In addition, there were five other economic questions, but in a different format. These are given in the appendix. VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

4 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN As it happens, our main findings would not be affected by adding any of the omitted questions with enlightened answers plausibly ascribed, as one may confirm using the provided database. We choose to confine our report to the eight questions that most reliably gauge economic enlightenment. The statements of the eight questions used are the following: 1. Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable. Unenlightened: Disagree 2. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services. Unenlightened: Disagree 3. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago. Unenlightened: Disagree 4. Rent control leads to housing shortages. Unenlightened: Disagree 5. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly. Unenlightened: Agree 6. Third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited. Unenlightened: Agree 7. Free trade leads to unemployment. Unenlightened: Agree 8. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment. Unenlightened: Disagree We think it is reasonable to maintain that if a respondent disagrees with the statement Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable, the respondent betrays a lack of economic enlightenment. Challengers might say something like: Well, not every restriction on housing development makes housing less affordable, but such a challenger would be tendentious and churlish. Unless a statement in a questionnaire explicitly makes it a matter of 100%, by using every, all, always, none, or never, it is natural to understand the statement as a by-and-large statement about overall consequences. Do restrictions on housing development, by and large, make housing less affordable? Yes they do. Does free trade lead, overall, to greater unemployment? No, it does not. For someone to say the contrary is economically unenlightened. Caveat 1 of 4: Some will take exception to our take on the eight questions, particularly the one about minimum wage laws. We understand that the blackboard model is highly misleading it eclipses non-wage job attributes, black markets, search intensity, future pay schedules, and so on. These surely mitigate the dis- 177 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

5 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT employment effect, but they do not eliminate it. Some will even say that, because of monoposony or coordination problems, minimum wages increase employment, but we judge such arguments to be of dubious plausibility and significance. We think that the basic logic asked by the question is revealed by carrying it to a minimum wage of, say, $20. Unemployment would go up a lot. True, the moderate increases observed and usually discussed produce only small effects in overall unemployment, but they are increases. It still seems to be the case that most economists agree that minimum wages increase unemployment among young and unskilled workers. 4 Moreover, our remarks arguably find indirect support by responses given by economists who signed a raise the minimum wage petition. 5 But most importantly, take out the question and our results still hold up. Our basic results do not depend on including the minimum wage question. Caveat 2 of 4: We acknowledge a shortcoming about the set of economic questions used here, and a corresponding reservation. None of the questions challenge the economic foibles specifically of conservatives, nor of libertarians, as compared to those of liberals / progressives. It would have been good, for example, if a question had asked about negative consequences of drug prohibition, or the positive consequences of increased immigration from Mexico. We doubt, however, that any partisan aspect of the questions much upsets our interpretations for reasons to be discussed once the findings are laid out. Caveat 3 of 4: Even if one accepts that our handling of each of the eight economic questions tracks economic enlightenment, the set represents a baseline rather than the heights of economic wisdom. In other words, the most economically enlightened mind would score no better than a solidly sensible mind on the eight questions, as they would both ace the 8-question exam. Yet presumably almost all of the most economically enlightened minds in the United States have all gone to college. In this respect our treatment fails to do justice to the relationship 4. In their 2000 survey of AEA members, Fuller and Geide-Stevenson (2003, 378) found that 45.6% agreed, 27.9% agreed with provisos, and 26.5% generally disagreed. 5. Klein and Dompe (2007) designed a questionnaire sent to the signatories (mostly economists) of a raise the minimum wage petition. Regarding mechanisms justifying their support for raising the minimum wage, of four mechanisms listed, the monoposony and coordination mechanism received significantly less endorsement than equalizing an imbalance in bargaining skills and inducing a transfer from employers to workers (142), indicating that their support was based more on the idea of redistributive transfer than employment effects. And in a question about possible negative consequences of raising the minimum wage, of six possible negative consequences, the one they were most concerned with was the disemployment effect. Of the 88 respondents who responded to the disemployment question, 24 (or 27%) denied the disemployment effect, while 54 (or 61%) acknowledged it as a minor negative consequence, and 10 (or 11%) acknowledged it as a significant negative consequence (149). Again, these economists had signed the raise the minimum wage petition. while, Neumark and Wascher (2008) write: the balance of the evidence indicates that, even if its aggregate effects are relatively small, a higher minimum wage will reduce job opportunities for the least-skilled workers most likely to be affected by the wage floor (1316). VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

6 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN between the education variable and economic enlightenment. The reader should keep in mind that when we speak of economic enlightenment, we mean it in relation to performance on a very basic test, not an average over the entire range of economic enlightenment. Results on Economic Enlightenment and Going to College Previous Literature on College-Going and Economic Knowledge College is called higher education. The 2008 report of Science and Technology Indicators finds that factual knowledge of science is positively related to the level of formal schooling (Chapter 7). A National Geographic (2006) survey of geographic literacy finds that knowledge of geographic facts, such as locating a country on a map, is significantly correlated with going to college (8, 11). Some studies find that a college degree is correlated with one s knowledge of facts related to economics. Blinder and Krueger (2004, 348) found modest relationship between knowledge of economic facts and going to college. The type of economic facts that they tested for consisted of items such as what percent of income is paid in taxes? and what is the current minimum wage? 6 Caplan (2007, 164) finds that college degree makes one more likely to agree with professional economists on economic facts and mechanisms. Walstad and Rebeck (2002), in reviewing five studies conducted from 1991 through 1999, find a significant relationship between college and knowledge of economics. Knowledge tested on these five surveys ranged from asking about the most-widely used measure of inflation to simple textbook problems, such as if the price of beef doubled and the price of poultry stayed the same, people would be most likely to buy (answer: more poultry and less beef). The study from which the last example was taken was a multiple-choice survey performed by Harris Interactive multiple times for the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE). Those surveys generally found large coefficients for college-going on the kind of knowledge they tested. A subsequent NCEE/Harris survey (Markow 2005) likewise found, after weighting the data, that college graduates were four times as likely as adults with only a high school education to score A or B on their survey. Though the effects found in these studies were sometimes modest, they all appear to be pointing in the 6. Blinder and Krueger (2004) found that voters with college degrees were somewhat more likely to oppose raising the minimum wage than were those without college degree an attitude that the authors speculated could have resulted from the college graduates understanding of the negative effects of minimum wage. As we will see, in our data such belief is not correlated with going to college. 179 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

7 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT same direction: that going to college is positively correlated with understanding of standard economic course material. while, Caplan and Miller (2006) use General Social Survey data including a ten-word vocabulary subtest, which the authors treat as a proxy for IQ, in addressing whether general-survey respondents share the economic beliefs of the average economist. They find that the estimated effect of education sharply falls after controlling for IQ. In fact, education is driven down to second place, and IQ replaces it at the top of the list of variables that make people think like economists. A difference between our questions, which challenge establishment thinking, and those treated by Walsted and Rebeck may account for the considerable difference in answering correctly. The questions treated by Walsted and Rebeck were typically answered correctly by about 70 percent of the samples they examine. In our survey, respondents scored much less well. We think that, for many respondents, economic understanding takes a vacation when economic enlightenment conflicts with establishment political sensibilities. Economic Enlightenment Was Not Correlated with Having a College Degree The question on schooling ran as follows: Which of the following best describes your highest level of education? Less than high school graduate High-school graduate Some college College degree or more (Refuse to answer) Of those answering each of the following questions, we found: Gender: 61.1% male, 38.9% female Highest level of schooling: 0.4% hadn t graduated high school, 6.5% were high school graduates, 27.5% had some college, 65.5% had a college degree or more. Because the number of those without high-school degree is small (0.5% of the sample), we combined that category with the next, making a composite category: high school or less. So we work with three levels of schooling: (1) high school or less; (2) some college (but not a degree); (3) a college degree or more. In our data, economic enlightenment is not correlated with going to college. To demonstrate the result, we have coded the economic responses in three different ways. In all three ways, the results are the same. The three ways we have coded the data are as follows: On the original five point scale (with not sure responses coded as a middle point). Over the eight questions, this scale ranges from 0 to 32. VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

8 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN Recoded into a three-point scale: (1) strongly agree or somewhat agree, (2) not sure, (3) strongly disagree or somewhat disagree. This scale ranges from 0 to 16. Recoded into a two-point scale where the middle not sure point of the three-point scale was recoded enlightened. Thus, answers were counted as incorrect only when a respondent explicitly endorsed an unenlightened view (either strongly or somewhat). Scores on this scale range from 0 to 8. For each question, the points are awarded in accordance with economic enlightenment. In the five point scale, for example, strongly agree is scored as a 4 on the living-standards-higher-today question and as a 0 on the free-trade-causesunemployment question. The results are presented in Figure 1. The horizontal axis gives the three levels of education; the vertical axis gives a corresponding average score. Since, as described above, we scored our respondents in three different ways, there are three average scores for each type of respondent. The line that is highest on the graph presents an average score on a 5-point scale, and the middle line presents an average score on a 3-point scale, and the lowest line presents an average score on the 2-point scale. No matter, all three lines are flat. These results would seem to conflict with previous studies that find a positive correlation. Figure 1. economic enlightenment score (for 5, 3, and 2-point scales) by level of education. 181 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

9 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT Now we address the possibility of response bias: Is there any reason to suspect either that, among less schooled people, those more economically enlightened would be more likely to complete the survey, or that, among more schooled people, those less economically enlightened would be more likely to complete the survey? Caveat 4 of 4: In commenting on this paper in draft, Bryan Caplan suggested that there is a strong reason to suspect that, among less schooled people, those more economically enlightened would be more likely to complete the survey. The survey was initiated by , and taking the survey would require a certain level of curiosity, reading compression, and cognitive focus. The survey procedure tends to screen out those of low IQ. The conjecture is supported by the fact that among our respondents, only 7 percent had no college a percentage far below that of the population. In our view, Caplan has a good point. Although we see no reason to suspect that, among more schooled people, those less economically enlightened would be more likely to complete the survey, we do think that the sort of effect suggested by Caplan is certainly operating to some extent. while, as shown by Caplan and Miller (2006), IQ correlates with economic understanding. Thus, we can imagine how Figure 1 would look if somehow the sample were truly representative: The ends at the left would be lower, and so the lines would slope upward, indicating a positive correlation between economic enlightenment and education level. But we have no simple way to determine, gauge, or confidently correct for any such response bias, so we just proceed to report the data such as they are. We now turn to results by individual question. To make the presentation simple, we here work with the two-point scale. Thus, for Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable, we count as (equally) not incorrect strongly agree, somewhat agree, and not sure; we count as (equally) incorrect somewhat disagree and strongly disagree. (The results using the two-point scale are also found using the three or five point scale.) In the tables that follow, using the two-point scale, we report on the percentage of response that are INCORRECT. Thus, in the tables that follow, high numbers are bad. We focus on incorrect responses to highlight the problem of people knowing what ain t so. Table 1 again shows that, for people inclined to participate in such a survey, going to college is not correlated with economic enlightenment. With the large sample size, all but the smallest of differences are statistically significant at the 0.05 level. But the magnitudes are small. It is possible that college-goers would have made a better relative showing if some of the questions had challenged interventions that are relatively unpopular with the college crowd (such as drug prohibition). VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

10 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN Table 1. Percentage INCORRECT by Schooling (using twopoint scale for question responses) Restrictions on housing developments make housing less affordable Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago. High School or Less (n=335) Some College (n=1327) College or More (n=3156) TOTAL* (n=4818) 37.0% 35.6% 39.3% 38.1% 23.6% 29.5% 37.0% 34.0% 33.4% 34.0% 30.5% 31.7% Rent control leads to housing shortages. 40.3% 42.7% 42.6% 42.4% A company with the largest market share is a monopoly. 28.4% 27.0% 16.5% 20.2% Third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited. 51.9% 53.7% 49.2% 50.6% Free trade leads to unemployment. 37.3% 37.7% 31.1% 33.3% Minimum wage laws raise unemployment. 43.9% 43.1% 49.7% 47.5% Average INCORRECT (out of 8 items) 2.96 (SE=0.11) 3.03 (SE=0.06) 2.96 (SE=0.04) 2.98 (SE=0.03) * Total includes only those respondents represented in the preceding three columns; that is, it does not include respondents who did not answer both the education question and the policy question treated in the row. Lack of Enlightenment by Self-Identified Ideology A question about ideology ran as follows: 7 Which description best represents your political ideology? Progressive/very liberal Liberal Moderate Conservative Very conservative Libertarian Not sure (Refuse to answer) Table 2 gives results by ideology: 7. In addition, our survey asked respondents to rate themselves on a 9 point scale (1-extremly liberal to 9-extremely conservative), but in this paper we do not make use of the question. 183 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

11 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT Table 2. Percentage INCORRECT by Ideology (using twopoint scale for question responses). Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable. Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services. Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago. Rent control leads to housing shortages. A company with the largest market share is a monopoly. Third-world workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited. Free trade leads to unemployment. Minimum wage laws raise unemployment. INCORRECT (average) Progressive (n=577) Liberal (n=742) Moderate (n=1086) Conservative (n=1423) Very Conservative (n=540) Libertarian (n=369) TOTAL* (n=4737) 67.6% 60.1% 45.9% 22.3% 17.6% 15.7% 38.1% 51.3% 50.0% 40.7% 25.6% 19.1% 12.7% 34.3% 61.0% 52.0% 36.9% 13.8% 12.0% 21.1% 31.2% 79.2% 70.9% 52.4% 23.0% 14.1% 15.7% 42.5% 30.8% 27.9% 26.0% 12.5% 13.5% 6.8% 19.9% 83.0% 77.0% 60.7% 30.9% 25.9% 29.3% 50.6% 60.8% 44.6% 40.0% 20.9% 16.1% 19.5% 33.2% 92.5% 86.3% 64.8% 17.5% 11.3% 17.6% 47.6% 5.26 (SE=0.07) 4.69 (SE=0.06) 3.67 (SE=0.06) 1.67 (SE=0.04) 1.30 (SE=0.06) 1.38 (SE=0.09) * Total includes only those respondents represented in the preceding six columns; that is, it does not include respondents who did not answer both the ideology question and the policy question treated in the row (SE=0.03) The line at the bottom reports for each ideological group the average number of incorrect answers. Adults self-identifying very conservative and libertarian VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

12 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN perform the best, followed closely by conservative. Trailing far behind are moderate, then with another step down to liberal, and a final step to progressive, who, on average, get wrong 5.26 questions out of eight. Here again we should acknowledge that none of the eight questions challenge typical conservative or libertarian policy positions, and that had some such questions been included, the measured economic-enlightenment means by ideological groups may well have been somewhat different. Nonetheless, we think that the measurement as-is captures something real. At least since the days of Frédéric Bastiat, many have said that people of the left often trail behind in incorporating basic economic insight into their aesthetics, morals, and politics. We put much stock in Hayek s theory (Hayek 1978, 1979, 1988) that the social-democratic ethos is an atavistic reassertion of the ethos and mentality of the primordial paleolithic band, a mentality resistant to ideas of spontaneous order and disjointed knowledge. Our findings support such a claim, all the caveats notwithstanding. Several of the questions would seem to be fairly neutral with respect to partisan politics, particularly the questions on licensing, the standard of living, monopoly, and free trade. None of those questions challenge policies that are particularly leftwing or rationalized on the basis of equity. Yet even on such neutral questions the progressives and liberals do much worse than the conservatives and libertarians. Within Each Ideological Group The reader might wonder whether the three variables economic enlightenment, education, and ideology interact in subtle ways. We avoid delving into these matters except to provide Figure 2, which, using the five-point enlightenment scale to open up the possible range (0-32), shows that within each ideological group, for the sort of people who are likely to participate in such a survey, there is still no substantial correlation between enlightenment and college, except perhaps for the conservative groups. But even there the effect of the education variable, though it might be called substantial, cannot be called large. 185 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

13 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT Figure 2. Economic enlightenment (using the five-point scale) by education and ideology. Possible Explanations for the Lack of Correlation between Economic Enlightenment and Going to College Our data indicate that Americans of the sort to participate in such a survey, those who are college-educated are no more economically enlightened than those who are not. Certain obvious factors would seem to tend towards a positive correlation between enlightenment and going to college. We figure that for the relationship to zero out into noncorrelation there must be some offsetting negative factors or mechanisms. Here we speculate on such negative factors. We offer four possible explanations for the observed lack of correlation between economic enlightenment and going to college. The first two pertain to the VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

14 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN possibility that, in terms of becoming economically enlightened, going to college simply does not surpass not going to college. Explanations 1 and 2 are the two sides of such a comparison. Explanation 1: The college professoriate is very preponderantly centrist, center-left, or left. Economic enlightenment tends to go with being classically liberal perhaps conservative or libertarian in today s parlance, and such types are rare among the professoriate. 8 Once a person has been acculturated and committed to the pattern of social-democratic political aesthetics, she might become not only unreceptive to economic enlightenment, but actually unfriendly to it, especially where it upsets cherished beliefs and values. Our study might suggest that college does not do much to make students aware of the undesirable consequences of certain policies the desirability of which is often taken for granted among professors. Although research does not find faculty ideology to have large effects on student ideology (e.g., Mariani and Hewitt 2008 points one way and Hewitt and Mariani 2010 points the other way), the point here is that the professoriate might be doing little that would elevate economic enlightenment. Explanation 2: If we think of the young adult years as especially formative, it may be that the non-college experience notably, the workplace or just living on one s own tends to impart economic enlightenment better than does the college experience, and college goers simply miss the advantage of learning what they would have learned from the non-college experience. The next two explanations have to do with sorting effects screening by colleges and self-sorting by individuals. Explanation 3: If being economically enlightened, or receptive to it, were to make it less likely that one would be admitted to college, that could help explain the findings, but we doubt that there is much to the idea. One small experimental study found that graduate programs in clinical psychology discriminate against social/ religious conservatives (Gartner 1986). Is it possible that college admission criteria that stress social activism and community involvement or even party politics might be biased in favor of fledgling social democrats? Explanation 4: It may be that, all else equal, being economically enlightened, or receptive to economic enlightenment, tends to make one less inclined to go to college, maybe because such bents make one more likely to enter the workplace or to forge ahead on one s own, or maybe one perceives academia to be left-leaning and avoids it for that reason. Also, if someone suspects that admission might be biased against him, and applying is costly, that only would make one less likely to apply Klein and Stern (2009) summarize the findings on the ideological profile of professors. 9. On college seniors deciding whether to go to graduate school see Woessner and Kelly-Woessner (2009). 187 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

15 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT Conclusion: Remarks on Economics Instruction at Colleges and Universities Although an additional section follows below, reporting other results, here we offer some remarks that conclude the foregoing discussion. In this paper we have striven to present our results simply and transparently. We have presented the raw data, excluding the veil of weights. We make the data and instrument publicly available. We have been candid and scrupulous about the four caveats we see as potentially clouding interpretations of the results. The caveat that we see as most significant as pertains to the education variable is that the survey procedure likely tended to discourage low-iq individuals from participation, thus artificially raising the observed economic enlightenment scores of the less educated groups, and tending to flatten the relationship between economic enlightenment and education level. But with this point in mind, we may read the results as pertaining to those who are likely to participate in such a survey, and even on that reading the results are significant and disturbing. A great deal of literature over many decades has discussed academe. A recent overview is offered by the American Enterprise Institute volume, The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reforms (Maranto et al. 2009). Questions of the ideological profile of the professoriate pertain not merely to certain narrow concerns, but to grand struggles between conflicting worldviews, to the course of liberal civilization. Our results raise questions about economics instruction on campuses. One issue is students exposure to economics in the general curriculum. Research has found that economics instruction does affect political attitudes slightly, though it is hard to say whether it sticks (Scott and Rothman 1975; Whaples 1995). Yet a study conducted and published by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) examined core requirements at 50 leading universities, including the Big Ten, Big Eight, Ivy League and Seven Sisters (Latzer 2004). Figure 3 reproduces the findings on subjects included in the core. None of the 50 schools requires a student to take economics. ACTA is continually expanding its coverage, and the latest finds that of 178 schools, coursework in economics is required at only four, Grambling State University, the United States Air Force Academy, the United States Military Academy (West Point), and University of Alaska-Fairbanks (see whatwilltheylearn.com). One angle for reform would be for trustees, administrators, and faculty to place more emphasis on economics instruction. VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

16 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN Figure 3: Percentage of 50 Surveyed Colleges and Universities Requiring Each Subject Source: Latzer 2004, 24 Another issue is the kind of economics instruction that students receive when they do take economics courses. We advise students and parents to beware of economics-principles courses that either stress blackboard models divorced from judging important policy positions, or that are hostile to classical liberal thinking and values. Students and parents should understand that while academic economists are, relative to other faculty, more attuned to economic enlightened, a substantial majority vote Democratic and maintain an ideological character in line with that of most of the humanities and social-science faculty. In selecting schools and courses, students and parents need to drill down to the individual professor, and investigate his or her webpage and course syllabi. Other Results As noted, the survey contained a large number of social variables aside from school-level and ideology. Here we simply report mean INCORRECT over the eight economic questions, for each group for each such social variable. Again, incorrect is coded based on the two-point scale (with not sure treated as not 189 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

17 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT incorrect). The maximum number incorrect would be eight, the minimum would be zero. Again, high numbers are bad the best possible score is 0 and the worst possible score is 8. (The questions have Zogby numbering 2002 in the case of the one immediately following.) How likely are you to vote in national elections? Likelihood Total incorrect (0-8) Very likely Somewhat likely Not likely Not sure In the 2008 presidential election, the candidates were Democrat Barack Obama, Republican John McCain, independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian Bob Barr and Green Cynthia McKinney. For whom did you vote? 2008 Election Total incorrect (0-8) Obama McCain Nader Barr McKinney Someone else Did not vote Not sure In which party are you either registered to vote or do you consider yourself to be a member? Party Total incorrect (0-8) Democratic Republican Independent/unenrolled/unaffiliated Libertarian Constitution Green Other Not sure VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

18 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN 702. Which of the following best represents your race or ethnic group? Race Total incorrect (0-8) White African American Asian/Pacific Arab American Other Do you consider yourself Hispanic or Latino? Hispanic/Latino Total incorrect (0-8) Yes No/Not sure Which of the following best represents where you live? Live Total incorrect (0-8) Large City Small City Suburbs Rural Which of the following best represents your religious affiliation? Religion Total incorrect (0-8) Catholic Protestant/other non-denominational Christian Jewish Muslim Atheist/realist/humanist Other/no affiliation (Only if 907=2) Do you consider yourself to be a born-again, evangelical, or fundamentalist Christian? BornAgain Total incorrect (0-8) Yes No/Not sure VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

19 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT 970. How often do you attend church, mosque, synagogue, or other place of worship? Attend services Total incorrect (0-8) More than once a week About once a week Once or twice a month Only on religious holidays Rarely Never Are you or is anyone in your household a member of a union? Union Total incorrect (0-8) Yes No/Not sure Which of the following best describes your marital status Status Total incorrect (0-8) Married Single Divorced/widowed/separated Civil union/domestic partnership Do you consider yourself to be mostly a resident of: your city or town, America, or planet earth Residency Total incorrect (0-8) My city or town America The planet earth NS/refused Are you or is any member of your family a member of the Armed Forces? Armed Forces Total incorrect (0-8) Yes No/Not sure VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

20 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN 946. Do you consider yourself a NASCAR fan? NASCAR fan Total incorrect (0-8) Yes No/Not sure Would you consider yourself a member of the investor class? Investor Class Total incorrect (0-8) Yes How often do you shop at Wal-Mart? No/Not sure Wal-Mart Total incorrect (0-8) Every week A few times a month A couple of times a year Never Other Which of the following best represents your household income last year before taxes? 922. Gender Income Total incorrect (0-8) < $25K $25-35K $35-50K $50-75K $75-100K $100K Gender Total incorrect (0-8) Male Female Appendices Appendix 1: The survey instrument: Link. Appendix 2: The data: Link. 193 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

21 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT References Blinder, Alan, and Alan Krueger What Does the Public Know about Economic Policy and How Does it Know It? Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (1): Link Buturovic, Zeljka, Grace Ren, and Katherine Schwalbe The Role of Education In Folk Economic Beliefs. Poster presented at the annual meeting of the ISPP 32nd Annual Scientific Meeting, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, July 14. Link Caplan, Bryan The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Caplan, Bryan, and Stephen C. Miller Economic Beliefs, Intelligence, and Ability Bias: Evidence from the General Social Survey. Unpublished. Link Fuller, Dan, and Doris Geide-Stevenson Consensus Among Economists: Revisited. Journal of Economic Education 34(4): Gartner, J. D Antireligious prejudice in admissions to doctoral programs in clinical psychology. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 17: Hayek, Friedrich A The Atavism of Social Justice. In New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hayek, Friedrich A The Three Sources of Human Values. In Law, Legislation and Liberty: Volume 3, The Political Order of a Free People, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hayek, Friedrich A The Fatal Conceit: The s of Socialism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hewitt, Gordon J., and Mack Mariani Indoctrination U. Revisited: Faculty Ideology and Changes in Student Ideology and Issue Positions, Ms. presented at the 2010 Southern Political Science Association Conference. Klein, Daniel B., and Charlotta Stern By the Numbers: The Ideological Profile of Professors. In The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reform, ed. Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, and Frederick M. Hess, Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Klein, Daniel B., and Stewart Dompe Reasons for Supporting the Minimum Wage: Asking Signatories of the Raise the Minimum Wage Statement. Econ Journal Watch 4(1): Link VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

22 BUTUROVIC AND KLEIN Latzer, Barry The Hollow Core: Failure of the General Education Curriculum. Washington, DC: American Council of Trustees and Alumni. Link Maranto, Robert, Richard E. Redding, and Frederick M. Hess, eds The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reform. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Mariani, Mack D., and Gordon J. Hewitt Indoctrination U.? Faculty Ideology and Changes in Student Political Orientation. PS: Political Science & Politics 41: Markow, Dana What American Teens and Adults Know About Economics. Prepared for The National Council on Economic Education. Harris Interactive. Link National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study Link Neumark, David, and William Wascher Minimum-Wages and Low- Wage Workers: How Well Does Reality Match the Rhetoric? Minnesota Law Review 92(5): Scott, James H., and Mitchell P. Rothman The Effect of an Introductory Economics Course on Student Political Attitudes. Journal of Economic Education 6(2): Science and Engineering Indicators 2008 Public Knowledge About S&T Link Walstad, William, and Ken Rebeck Assessing the Economic Knowledge and Economic Opinions of Adults. The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance 42, Whaples, Robert Changes in Attitudes among College Economics Students about the Fairness of the Market. Journal of Economic Education 26(4): Woessner, Matthew, and April Kelly-Woessner Left Pipeline: Why Conservatives Don t Get Doctorates. In The Politically Correct University: Problems, Scope, and Reforms, ed. Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding, and Frederick M. Hess, Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. 195 VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY 2010

23 ECONOMIC ENLIGHTENMENT About the Authors Zeljka Buturovic holds a PhD in psychology from Columbia University. She is a research associate at Zogby International where she studies socio-economic intuitions and how they are used by competing political groups to enhance in-group solidarity, among other things. Her is paradox.columbia.edu. Daniel Klein is professor of economics at George Mason University, and associate fellow and academic advisor at the Ratio Institute in Stockholm. He is the chief editor of Econ Journal Watch. His is Go to Archive of Watchpad section Discuss this article at Journaltalk: VOLUME 7, NUMBER 2, MAY

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